We were young then We balanced sidewalks We were cool then and dripping wet With our lack of common sense Your mother measured how tall Those marks on walls were worth their weight in gold We were heavy Tree branches couldn’t hold us Teasing curfew we bought time For the time being We thought we knew the difference between Swallowed whole and running reckless And so he tasted Your skin in sandboxes And so he spread you flat on the ground Like a blanket And we walked the wrong ways and Talked thick words In thin places I sat on his bedspread He played his father’s James Taylor records My head full of “this is the end of my life as I know it” These words, this room, this man, these piano hands Now our scattered Correspondence Will be keeping Me from clinging to you We were young then We were childish Carving peepholes From our pupils